Are you ready to work hard and smart?
The needs of today’s consumers are very demanding. They are looking for products and services that must meet their needs at each point in time, and we all know that needs of consumers are continuously changing. Due to the fact that we live in a rapidly changing world, you may discover that an in-vogue product of today is obsolete tomorrow. So, the entrepreneur must be able to work extremely hard to change along with the changing needs of the consumers.
It is very tough to live up to expectation in this area, but if you want room in the market place you must be willing to work hard at getting new versions of your product or service to the market ahead of competitors. This demands being hardworking as well as being smart with what you are doing.
Looking at the hardwork part of it, one needs to take a cue from the Chinese. Once they spot a need in the market, they work hard at getting a product that will meet that need ahead of every other person. It requires the ability not only to come up with the physical product, but also to do other things required to get the product into the hands of consumers, like distribution, marketing and after sales support. People are always flexible in patronizing products and services that will meet their needs in terms of quality, price, where it is available for purchase and the quality of the service that is given them at the point of purchase, irrespective of who is behind that product or service. Consumers don’t care about your gender or colour, religion or where you come from. Once the terms are right they go after what you have to offer. China is said to manufacture about 50% of what the entire world uses. With their population which is lower than that of 20% of the population of the whole world, how did they grab 50% share of the needs of the entire world concerning manufactured goods? They simply work harder than anybody else in meeting the needs of the consumers. The average Chinese manufacturer is also so flexible, that it can attend to the needs of 100 different segments at the same market. To make this point clearer, I want to talk about the experience of a Nigerian businessman who was asked to quote for the supply of solar panels by an American organization.
With this point I will move to the requirement of being ready to work smart. The issue of the supply of the solar panels happened on the American continent. This Nigerian businessman who was asked to supply the solar panels to the American buyer contacted a Chinese manufacturer of solar panels to collect a quote which he will in turn use as basis for quoting for the supply to the American organization. Because the Chinese manufacturer thought he was dealing with a Nigerian who probably was going to make the supply to Nigeria, gave a seemingly low price. When that Nigerian businessman informed the Chinese manufacturer that the solar panels were meant for the American market, the Chinese manufacturer told the Nigerian businessman that they were withdrawing the quote. They promptly prepared another one which was for solar panels meant for the American market. I am sure you know that the price was several multiples of the one meant for the Nigerian market. Why did the Chinese manufacturer quote differently for the American market than what it did for the Nigerian market despite the fact that it was the same product with same features? The simple reason behind the issue was the difference in quality expectations of the two markets being served in this transaction. The Chinese are very smart. They know Nigerians go for cheap products and don’t really care about quality. This is different when we are looking at the American market. The Chinese manufacturer dared not to have shipped the solar panels meant for the Nigerian market to the American continent. He will be blacklisted. So he had to increase the price like times 5 of what he quoted for the Nigerian market.
If you are able to match the Chinese in the game of working hard and smart just as we illustrated in this piece, you will always have room in the market for whatever product or service that you have on offer.
Kola Owolabi is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Management Consultants (FIMC.CMC) and Chief Executive Officer of David Solomon Consulting Limited, based in Igbesa, a suburb of metropolitan Lagos, in the vicinity of Crawford University. The company can be reached via phone or WhatsApp at 08023203198
